


you can close your eyes and really sleep

by coldhope



Series: Seemann [5]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, eridan is way too cool for colds, matespritship fluff, self-indulgent flushed fussing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-11
Updated: 2012-04-11
Packaged: 2017-11-03 10:51:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/380584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldhope/pseuds/coldhope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eridan/Equius fluff, set in the Seemannverse some unknown time post-Blurs-and-Stains. Eridan is coming down with something and refuses to acknowledge objective reality, because objective reality fuckin sucks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you can close your eyes and really sleep

You’ve been clearing your throat all night, unaware of it except in the instant where you feel the need to, but it’s getting more difficult to ignore. Even after repeated attempts you can’t seem to get your voice to stop sounding clogged and raspy, which is seriously annoying and so you try not to say anything if you don’t really have to. 

Probably just air pollution. The winds have sucked a lot of crap off the mainland this past couple of nights, no wonder you’re congested. You need a proper swim in nice cold salt water. 

You tell him you’ll be back soon, stripping off with flagrant abandon, aware of how he’s looking at you. For the benefit of his tidy mind you keep your shorts on, but nothing else other than your rings, when you pad out onto the chilly aft deck and dive (perfectly) off the taffrail. He’s scrambled up to follow you but you’re already underwater when he starts to say whatever he’s about to say, and your hearing is gone in a skittle-skirl-gloing of bubbles and the whole-body swallow as your gills open themselves to the sea. 

It feels good, it feels _really_ good, the cold cutting through you cleanly and loosening the sticky thickness in your throat and chest. Salt water is goddamn useful stuff, cleans wounds, eases irritation, rinses clean. But you’re aware of the chill in the water sooner than you expected to be, and your face hurts with a nasty kind of itching pain when you try and go deeper than thirty or forty feet, your sinuses feeling overpressurized, and after only about ten minutes of good hard swimming you clamber back aboard the _Dualscar_ , teeth chattering, to find him ready with a towel.

Fuck. It’s warm. How did he even. He must’ve draped it over top of your dinky little space-heater. You huddle into the heated softness and find that he’s wrapped you up firmly and is now applying a _second_ towel, jegus fuck, to your hair, and you can’t be bothered to protest because god that feels like fucking heaven after the icy water, the soft-rough warmth of the towel and his strength so carefully held in check. 

He’s guiding you back inside and now hey, you’re flopped on your broke-ass couch and he’s not there any more, he’s bustling off to do something and you kind of wish he hadn’t gone, that was nice. At least the towels are still warm, and you sit up and scrub your hair damp-dry, careful of the golden horntip he built for you. Gah, you are fucking tired. You are tired like crazy. You must’ve worked harder today than you realized. Your face is still hurting, which is fucking stupid, how can the bones of your face even feel like they’re full of seething pepper?

And god damn everything to hell you have to clear your throat again, or at least try. It doesn’t really work and you don’t want to keep making gross noises because Equius will say something and you’re not in the mood. You just want to curl up beside your (large, warm) matesprit and maybe watch a shitty movie or something and go to sleep. 

He probably won’t notice if you just rest your eyes for a moment, right? You wrap the towels more securely around yourself and curl up in the corner of the couch, letting your eyes close. Soon as you hear him coming back you’ll be bright and fully awake.

“...Eridan,” he’s saying. “Eridan, love. Wake up enough to drink this, all right?”

Fuck, you totally went to sleep. “...time is it?”

“You’ve been asleep for maybe half an hour. Here.” An arm like an iron bar, so gentle, curls around your shoulders, and you sit up a bit and realize that your hair is almost certainly dried in a _really terrible configuration_. Ow. Oh, _ow_. It feels like you maybe swallowed something really sharp or possibly caustic a little while ago without noticing, your whole throat burning.

“Ngh,” you say.

“It’s all right. Just get this down you and then you can go to sleep properly.” _This_ is apparently something in a mug he carefully wraps your hands around, rings clinking against the porcelain. It sort of smells of honey and lemons and a bit of spices and maybe some spirits as well, but your nose doesn’t seem to be working very well just at the moment. What the hell, you think, and try a sip, and while you...can’t really taste a lot it’s hot and sweet and sharp and makes the back of your throat hurt a lot less after the initial _augh_. 

“‘s nice,” you tell him, and he nuzzles the top of your damp head, pulling you close to lean against his shoulder. That, too, is nice, and you let yourself be comforted by his warm solidity. Once the drink has cooled enough you swallow it in thirsty gulps and the heat blooms out from your digestion sac and makes you ache less all over.

You sort of want another mugful but you are _so_ tired and you really just want to curl up somewhere warm, such as his lap, and go back to sleep; he rumbles under your ear and strokes your hair back, letting his hand rest against your forehead. “--Recuperacoon, Eridan. No arguing.”

“Ngh. C’m in with me?”

“I suppose that can be managed.” He’s shifting his arms and suddenly you are lifted right off the couch as if you were a handful of linens, held cradled close to his chest without apparent effort; you secretly like it when he does this but you have not at all come close to being ready to admit that yet. Your throat is beginning to hurt again now that the warmth of the drink has faded, and you rub your face against his shoulder like a petulant wriggler, wanting comfort without really knowing how or why.

Then there is the wonderful sweet warmth of sopor, and you breathe in and the faint vapor of it soothes your throat. He’s gone, that’s not right, where did he go? You think you ought to do something about that but you can’t be bothered to _move_ at the moment, everything is so much nicer lying in the green comfort of the recuperacoon, even if you have to cough a little and resettle yourself more comfortably. You might have zoned out a little when he comes back, and you blink awake to smile up at him as he slithers into the ‘coon beside you, naked except for his shorts, and settles you against his shoulder. “Mmm. You went away.”

“I went to fetch things,” he corrects, and reaches an arm over the rim of the recuperacoon, lifting a small plastic cup of something viscous and red into view. You wriggle away instinctively, hiding your face against his side, muttering dire imprecations. “--Eridan,” he says. “You will take this horrible medicine or I will be _cross_ with you,” and there’s that I-mean-business undertone to his voice. 

“Do I have to?”

“You do have to. I know it tastes like horror and faux-cherry death, but that is why I have also brought you something much nicer to chase it with.”

“I’m fine,” you say, without a great deal of conviction: your throat is now hurting pretty undeniably and you have a tickle in your chest and your whole face is full of ow. Goddamnit.

“You are undoubtedly going _to be_ fine, but at the moment you are under the weather.” 

You give up. “Give it here, then.” It _does_ taste of horror and faux-cherry death and you tense for a nasty moment before you’re completely sure it will stay down, but your innards settle. He kisses the top of your head.

“I’m sorry, love. But here, this ought to help a bit.” It’s a little more of the mixture he’d given you earlier, and you can tell there’s more brandy in it, and that is _just fine_ with you; by the time you’re done with it you are half-asleep already and you barely notice when he tweaks the drooping mug out of your hand and settles you more comfortably against his shoulder, reaching to turn off the light. “Sleep well, Eridan.”

“Mmhhff,” you reply. And you really don't dream.

**Author's Note:**

> art by tumblr user alizabith!


End file.
